To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with reference to the answer to the hon. Member for Meriden of 19 May 2009, Official Report, column 1284W, on geographical information systems, whether the definition of cadastral parcels has been finalised for the purposes of implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. (308741)

The draft INSPIRE Implementing Rule for Annex I Data Specifications (including Cadastral Parcels) was unanimously passed by the INSPIRE Comitology Committee on 14 December 2009. This document will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union later in 2010 as a Regulation.

The Implementing Rule does not further define the scope beyond the INSPIRE Directive statement as “Areas defined by cadastral registers or equivalent.” The INSPIRE Feature Concept Dictionary extends that definition and this is also developed in the INSPIRE Cadastral Parcels Data Specification Guidelines at:

http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pageid/2

From this it can be inferred, that the minimum requirement for the United Kingdom, is the legal property land parcel data, recorded as vector data, by the Land Registries in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those data are dependent on Ordnance Survey data in Great Britain and Land and Property Services data in Northern Ireland.